Sorry about that. I'll use a link next time. :)
It does help. Thanks. A few responses:

Jiggy wrote:

Point #1 & #2: Encouraging Optimization

Optimization is going to happen no matter what. I sometimes think it's overrated. I don't think strength 19 is twice as good strength 17, but costs 2.6 times more. Maybe intelligence/wisdom/charisma on a caster is worth it. That said PFS does not respond well to certain builds. Giving a few dismissal spells to the occasional bad guys would help with half-elf synthesists. I think that's what a reasonable GM would do in a campaign.

Jiggy wrote:

...So Point #1 is not theoretical.

I don't think there's anything wrong with being theoretical per se. However, if there's no evidence of systematic min-maxing due to changes in difficulty, than I find it hard to weigh against the very observable problem of cakewalks (due to scenario).

Jiggy wrote:

Point #2: Accurate Feedback on Scenarios

That sounds pretty clear and is enough for me to feel less guilty about providing such an anti-climactic finale.

Jiggy wrote:

Point #3: Resource Inequality

I worry more about the guy who feels cheated because he rolled low on initiative and misses the fight. Or the guy who built a character around being sneaky or diplomatic, but no one will ever let be sneaky or diplomatic.

I tend to dislike when "kill random NPCs" is the default solution.

Jiggy wrote:

Point #5 & #6

I don't think either is really a one-way argument in favor of playing a scenario as written. In no way is awesomeness ever anticlimactic and it's generally fun and funny when a player creatively makes a difficult situation easy. I think it happens a lot less, however, if the players feel that they can blindly open every door and run into every fight without thinking.

I always stick to the challenges and monsters as laid out; however, i sometimes make minor adjustments to the numbers and always allow the player to deviate and control the direction of the scenario.

For instance, I ran Clash of the Kinglsayers, and had the players go to Glimmerhold in order to facilitate a trade deal. The scenario called for the characters to speak to the King and other nobles. However, the scenario didn't give any details whatsoever on the nobles. So I expanded upon the event and made it a thorough part of the adventure. Many adventures are like this. Sometimes a player gets stuck, or he may take a different direction. The adventures never fully cover every aspect, thus it is up to a good GM to improvise.

While we appreciate your feedback, this thread is in regards to Pathfinder Society Organized Play. You are welcome to change modules however you like in your home game, but there are rules against it in OP. Not sure if you noticed the forum you are posting in or misunderstood the topic.

Even moreso in PFS than APs, space is at a premium in the publication. They can not feasibly cover every possible contingency and 'going off script' from time to time is something that's not only unavoidable, but to be expected.

Even moreso in PFS than APs, space is at a premium in the publication. They can not feasibly cover every possible contingency and 'going off script' from time to time is something that's not only unavoidable, but to be expected.

But the issue is that home games, even those that use PFS scenarios, are not bound by the "no changes" rules of the community. I just didn't want what's happening in non-PFS events to confuse the feedback in the thread. I don't now of any GM, anywhere that doesn't change the printed material in their home games, in fact the designers expect and encourage it. Just not for OP.

John Francis
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South
aka JohnF

Failure can be fun, but only as long as you had an actual chance to succeed. A PA requiring Perform Woodwind instrument? No one is going to have that, I have never seen or heard of a PC with that skill. Failing a perception check, or a bluff check? Sure, those can be roleplayed and can be hilarious. A check you can't even bother making? That is no fun and comes across as a big middle finger to the player.

Even a check against a trained-only skill that is fairly common should be used with caution in low-tier adventures (especially for faction quests). Characters with four (or less) skills per level are probably going to put their initial skill points into class skills for their character. And while society members are encouraged to help out other members of their party, it's quite possible that a collection of random first-level characters will have gaps in their skill coverage.

or was it that you were not trained in Perform Woodwind? I'll bet this was an older mod, written for 3.5 when a PC could do a Perform check untrained, and a T20 would have given anyone with a CHA of 10 or higher the "cookie". So a party of low CHA dudes would have been hosed, and in PF looks like we get hosed 'cause Perform is now a trained only skill - except if you have the skill trained, or can hire anyone who does...

DC20 on a skill you can re-try? Piece of Cake.... This is much easier than a DC 15 Knowledge check - where you CAN'T Take 20, and can't do it un-trained either. or a DC 15 Slight of Hand check to steal something (only one try). So it looks to me like this is an easier Faction Mission.

No one was trained in it, and the DC was higher than 20 (if I recall). It was also a Season 3 module. And the situation was such that taking 20 would have been illogical.

sorry - guess I was speaking out of turn. I do not know the circumstances and spoke the first thing that popped into my head - so, open mouth insert foot - "Plainly I am the athority here for I know nothing about the situation being discribed".

Please move along - nothing happening here. ;)

John Francis
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South
aka JohnF

Perhaps its not that Alexander_Damocles is being unfair so much as your GM didn't reward you for a creative solution. Or perhaps, your solution was not very creative. In cases like this, it is extremely difficult to second guess what a GM decides in the heat of the game.

I make no claims of creativity. I don't have the scenario in question (Quest for Perfection, part I), so I am not privy to all the details. But my faction mission briefing was

briefing:

as a member of the Shadow Lodge, to discover evidence of the fate of an earlier Pathfinder who had vanished without trace trying to reach the monastery

I believe I found the primary object of my quest

Spoiler:

an encrypted journal in a ghoul-occupied side cave up the trail. I was unable to read the journal myself, but thought it was quite likely that it contained information relevant to my mission. Nobody else in the party had linguistics, so the best I could do was to return it to my faction.

The GM informed me that in order for me to succeed in my faction mission it would have been necessary for somebody to succeed at the (trained only) skill-based check named in the spoiler - presumably this would have given me additional information and/or another sub-quest.

By the luck of the draw, none of the players who had signed up for that particular table was running a character trained in that skill (it was a very low-level table), nor were there any spell-casters in the party (you'd think the Pathfinder Society would exercise more care in putting together adventuring parties :-). As far as I can see this means there was no way I could earn that extra prestige award.

I'm not losing any sleep over it, but I'd like to know if there really was nothing I could have done differently in order to achieve the goal.

I'm not losing any sleep over it, but I'd like to know if there really was nothing I could have done differently in order to achieve the goal.

If it were me, and you had in-character reasons to think your actions would be correct, I'd call that a "Creative Solution" and give you the point. Or at least give you the opportunity to reach a town at the end and hire someone to decrypt it or something.

Now, if you needed the check to even realize that the item was relevant in the first place, then you'd probably be out of luck. But if your character (without OOC knowledge) is able to go to his faction contact and say "Here's what you needed", then I consider the faction mission completed.

I agree with Jiggy. IMO, this is a clear case of not rewarding creative solutions. It is also an example of a faction mission that is too easy to resolve. If the intent was to force the player to decipher the book, then it has to be written in such a way that it is not possible to return the book. There are waaay to many missions that require a specific, often trained-only, skill, but there is nothing preventing the PC from just taking the mcguffin and return it to the lodge intact. It defeats the purpose of the skill check in the first place.

IMO, there are only two ways the GM could rule you did not deserve the fame. (1) because the scenario said so. You failed to decipher the book, therefore you fail. Not a very compelling argument, although, he did follow the RAW. (2) reasoning that since you did not decipher the book, you could not return to your faction exalting your success at locating the fate of the lost pathfinder. It would fall to another faction to decipher and determine the fate. Again, this is not a very compelling argument.

Of course, I have to caution my comments because I do not know what the scenario said nor do I know all the details of the encounter. No offense, but we are only getting the situation from your perspective. I'm glad you're okay with the result. Assuming that you, like most, are ahead of the 1.5 prestige/scenario curve, you're still fine.

Here's something I thought of after running of First Steps part 1, and I want to bounce it off the other Judges here and see if I'm off base. I'm going to spoiler it, so that I can discribe the "change", and you can spoiler your replies if you think you need to.

First Steps Part I:

Would changing the order of the encounters in this mod be within the realm of what a Judge can do? I can see getting the final encounter out of the way early - I mean, if a PC get's wacked, the player could start another (a clone perhaps?), picked up early enough to finish the rest of the mod, and get credit for it... (perhaps even full rewards). The muggers could easily be waiting near the Chapter House to hit a party of adventurers headed out just as easy as one headed in.

(And it would sure surprise the "re-play" guy who is expecting the fight at the end.)

So, I guess this is two question.

1) Can I as a judge, change the order of the encounters?

2) Would it break/spoil/upset/twist or otherwise harm this adventure to do the "final" encounter earlier?

In the case of First Steps, it is largely a sand-box scenario so the players can go in whatever direction or encounter order they want to. Whether or not you can move the ambush up would depend on the motivation of the attackers. It appears they are random brigands out of easy money. It would seem logical that they would wait to assess the abilities of the PC's as well as let them expend resources before the ambush. They also need to determine if the PC's have anything worth stealing. If the watch the PC's through the day, they can determine that they have gained wealth.

That being said, I really don't see an issue with changing the order in this scenario. Although, IMO, you're using an OOC/meta-GM'y reason to do so. Only you can decide if that is appropriate or not.

Here's something I thought of after running of First Steps part 1, and I want to bounce it off the other Judges here and see if I'm off base. I'm going to spoiler it, so that I can discribe the "change", and you can spoiler your replies if you think you need to.

** spoiler omitted **

Spoiler:

Why would you even want to?

John Francis
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South
aka JohnF

I'm not losing any sleep over it, but I'd like to know if there really was nothing I could have done differently in order to achieve the goal.

If you needed the check to even realize that the item was relevant in the first place, then you'd probably be out of luck. But if your character (without OOC knowledge) is able to go to his faction contact and say "Here's what you needed", then I consider the faction mission completed.

Oh, the character absolutely had relevant knowledge. He was fresh from running First Steps (part 2), where there was a very similar kind of encounter.

Spoiler:

a ghoul that turned out to once have been a pathfinder

He had every reason to suspect something of the kind here, and to search the lair for evidence to support this belief. In fact I mentioned this to the GM to explain why I headed into the cave.

I'm not losing any sleep over it, but I'd like to know if there really was nothing I could have done differently in order to achieve the goal.

If you needed the check to even realize that the item was relevant in the first place, then you'd probably be out of luck. But if your character (without OOC knowledge) is able to go to his faction contact and say "Here's what you needed", then I consider the faction mission completed.

Oh, the character absolutely had relevant knowledge. He was fresh from running First Steps (part 2), where there was a very similar kind of encounter.** spoiler omitted ** He had every reason to suspect something of the kind here, and to search the lair for evidence to support this belief. In fact I mentioned this to the GM to explain why I headed into the cave.

Spoiler:

Then assuming the item was easily recognizable as that particular Pathfinder's journal (i.e., you knew that all you lacked was the exact content), I'd have given you the point.

To contrast, I ran a scenario in which one faction mission was to acquire incriminating evidence against someone. The item turns out to be a copy of contracts (or something like that) written in Orc. If you can read Orc, you're golden. If you make a successful Linguistics check, you can determine the kind of document it is and infer that you should bring it back. But despite half the table being that faction, no one spoke Orc and the one person trained in Linguistics failed. As a result, they didn't even know the documents were relevant - they were just papers in a desk, just like a million other papers in said desk that weren't important. So, alas, half the table missed their faction point. Though if any of them had said, "You know what, there's gotta be something in here!" and taken the entire contents of the desk back to Absalom, I'd have (probably) given it to them.

John Francis
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South
aka JohnF

No offense, but we are only getting the situation from your perspective. I'm glad you're okay with the result. Assuming that you, like most, are ahead of the 1.5 prestige/scenario curve, you're still fine.

It's a minor irritation, not a lifee-changing event, and it's made up for by the PA in part III which I (this time with a second party member from the same faction) managed to achieve without fully understanding just what we were supposed to do to earn the award.

At present my perspective is the only one I've got. If somebody who has access to the scenario tells me I'm drawing erroneous conclusions that would be fine; in any case, I'm perfectly happy with my current PA total. That's the only one I've missed in four scenarios (not counting the two parts of First Steps I've run, which basically give you the second point).

Here's something I thought of after running of First Steps part 1, and I want to bounce it off the other Judges here and see if I'm off base. I'm going to spoiler it, so that I can discribe the "change", and you can spoiler your replies if you think you need to.

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

several reasons actually.

First Steps - answer for Jiggy:

1) the encounter in question is a tough fight, perhaps the most likely to kill a PC due to a one-shot crit. If the PC dies that way - even if it was covered in glory (protecting his fellow pathfinders) it gives the player time to "spawn" a new PC (perhaps a clone of his first one) and continue to play. At the end of the mod, he had a character that played most of the adventure and has the rewards to show for it - and the experience too.

2) Old hands "know" the final encounter is alway a tough fight... this changes it. and it's always fun to play out of the mold.

3) Mostly, the other encounters are role playing and the time flow can be more in control of the players. Got another hour? play with the kids in the orphanage. do some character interaction. Flirt with the Para-Countess. Fall in the harbor.

4) if the players have done this one before, they will get a little surprise - "what - this encounter is now? what the heck?" And it might just gimp the guy that drinks the "blur" potion before going down the ally (had a dude do this in one game. sigh, like he didn't KNOW the big combat was coming up.).

To contrast, I ran a scenario in which one faction mission was to acquire incriminating evidence against someone. The item turns out to be a copy of contracts (or something like that) written in Orc. If you can read Orc, you're golden. If you make a successful Linguistics check, you can determine the kind of document it is and infer that you should bring it back. But despite half the table being that faction, no one spoke Orc and the one person trained in Linguistics failed. As a result, they didn't even know the documents were relevant - they were just papers in a desk, just like a million other papers in said desk that weren't important. So, alas, half the table missed their faction point. Though if any of them had said, "You know what, there's gotta be something in here!" and taken the entire contents of the desk back to Absalom, I'd have (probably) given it to them.

I can understand the sentiment, but unfortunately from how it's written that is the one act that doesn't happen until the PC's finish the other 4 acts. The first 4 acts can be done in any order, but the group at the end is following the PC's all day to wait till they've gathered what "loot" they will before ambushing them. If they didn't have that stipulation that they aren't engaged by the hoods till then, I could see the hoods trying to rob them of their starting gear and everything.

However, how does that make new players feel as well. They can't even get past the first fight without dying, and then they kind of get a hand holding for the rest of the scenario as the rest isn't that rough (except maybe the invisible guy). I'd feel more like I was having pity taken on me, once the rest of the scenario wasn't as rough as the intro/warmup fight. Just my take on it, as I can definitely see wanting to swap it around too.

well, let's do it in reverse Snig - get the beginner to play all night, he's haveing great fun and then Boom. Your dead guy. Sorry, your friends get these niffty AR's showing they get money to buy stuff and all. Ah, sorry, no AR for you. Play again.

You think the above is better than... Boom - you died. You know, wow, you got critted guy, doesn't happen often, but a PC could get killed in this city - just like the Venture captain told you. But you know what, seeing as it's just a starting character, how's about playing his identical twin - we'll start you as soon as these guys get thru avenging your brothers death. and he get's an AR at the end just like everyone else.

Although high levels of optimization do make encounters easier (duh), I've gotta call BS on this. You do have a gripe with min-maxing. If you truly were okay with it, you wouldn't be saying things like "anyone wanting to play an actual character" (implies that anyone else - the optimizers - do not want to play an actual character), or "the roll-players" (an established term used to denote someone who optimizes but does not roleplay). Had you actually believed there was nothing wrong with optimization, you'd have made no comment on roleplaying ability (yes, one can be mentioned without the other).

No, you quite obviously believe that roleplaying and optimization are at opposite ends of a spectrum, and that the roleplaying end is superior.

Whether or not that's correct is a topic for another thread, but it's quite obvious you believe it, so please don't drag that old debate into this already-heated-at-times thread, and PLEASE don't insult the intelligence of every reader here by claiming not to have that view.

Jiggy! Jiggy! Let's be friends!

I apologize for the caustic language, and freely admit that my 'roll-player' type remarks could be accurately interpreted as you describe. I must disagree with your assessment of me, however.

If only you could have overheard the discussion tonight between myself and one of my min-maxing home game players, you would know that you've misjudged me. I think his comment was actually relevant to this thread. He said "rather than a bunch of restrictions on power level, I'd much rather play optimized characters against optimized monsters". This is, in fact, what he gets from me in our home game, where I can throw a few fighter levels and some optimized feat choices on say, a frost giant (using an awesome new Pathfinder Battles miniature, of course - I prefer the sword to the axe), because I know his PC is gonna waste 'im (probably) before the giant slashes the rest of the PCs to death.

Without leeway to modify encounters in Society play, how could I accommodate a group made up of players like him? Which, by the way, I would be happy to do. Answer: I can't. That's not about "min-maxing, good or bad?" it's about "PFS GM-ing, can you modify scenarios, or not?"
I think a bit of leeway in OP, if it could somehow be encoded in a rules section, would be a plus.

Don't the faction mission suffer from an incentive problem? Since earned fame is tied to what you can purchase, it makes stickler or rigid GM's seem like miserly poopy-heads if they don't let me get creative beyond what's written. "Cheat" in the players favor? As my old female Alaskan GM would say "You Betcha!"

Use a Wand, Staff, or Other Spell Trigger Item: Normally, to use a wand, you must have the wand's spell on your class spell list. This use of the skill allows you to use a wand as if you had a particular spell on your class spell list. Failing the roll does not expend a charge.

Action: None. The Use Magic Device check is made as part of the action (if any) required to activate the magic item.

Try Again: Yes, but if you ever roll a natural 1 while attempting to activate an item and you fail, then you can't try to activate that item again for 24 hours.

Special: You cannot take 10 with this skill. You can't aid another on Use Magic Device checks. Only the user of the item may attempt such a check.

If you have the Magical Aptitude feat, you gain a bonus on Use Magic Device checks (see Feats).

Thanks! Way back in this thread I stated my use of a CLW wand, hand waving the activation rolls and just marking the charges used. My mistake, totally forgot about the nat 1 issue.

Since I'll always want to have a CLW wand with me, I'll go ahead and get the second one now. That way if the first wand "jams" with a nat 1, I'll have a back up wand to continue healing with. As long as no nat 1s come up for 24 hours we'll be OK.

well, let's do it in reverse Snig - get the beginner to play all night, he's haveing great fun and then Boom. Your dead guy. Sorry, your friends get these niffty AR's showing they get money to buy stuff and all. Ah, sorry, no AR for you. Play again.

You think the above is better than... Boom - you died. You know, wow, you got critted guy, doesn't happen often, but a PC could get killed in this city - just like the Venture captain told you. But you know what, seeing as it's just a starting character, how's about playing his identical twin - we'll start you as soon as these guys get thru avenging your brothers death. and he get's an AR at the end just like everyone else.

Like I say, I can understand the desire to have the chance of death early, and play on with a #2. I'm just saying there's possible downside to this take too, as not everyone will truly just brush off a death and move on. Especially if the rest of the scenario feels like kid gloves. I think some will appreciate that tack, and some won't. Again, just my opinion.

That being said:

Spoiler:

this came from the question on if it was permissible to swap the timing of the acts around in this case. Originally, I was just pointing out that this act was specifically written to occur after the other 4.

Well, it's not a secret language (by any means); the main difficulty in mastering it are the myriad subdialiects, some of which are largely intelligible to each other (the 3.x lingo and PF patois, f'r instance) and some which are completely foreign to each other (Shadowrunspeak and the Gamma World gutteral).

well, let's do it in reverse Snig - get the beginner to play all night, he's haveing great fun and then Boom. Your dead guy. Sorry, your friends get these niffty AR's showing they get money to buy stuff and all. Ah, sorry, no AR for you. Play again.

You think the above is better than... Boom - you died. You know, wow, you got critted guy, doesn't happen often, but a PC could get killed in this city - just like the Venture captain told you. But you know what, seeing as it's just a starting character, how's about playing his identical twin - we'll start you as soon as these guys get thru avenging your brothers death. and he get's an AR at the end just like everyone else.

Like I say, I can understand the desire to have the chance of death early, and play on with a #2. I'm just saying there's possible downside to this take too, as not everyone will truly just brush off a death and move on. Especially if the rest of the scenario feels like kid gloves. I think some will appreciate that tack, and some won't. Again, just my opinion.

That being said:** spoiler omitted **

you are correct Sniggevert - and I am a strong proponent of "run as written - even the tactics." so I would be hypocritical if I were to change the order of the encounters. Which is why I posted it as a question here. It was after all the title of this thread. I do think it would very much improve the mod - with out changing the difficulty (which seems to be the biggest reason other people want to change the scenerios, they feel that XX adventure is to hard/easy and want to "improve" it, or tailor it to the "individual" PCs. THanks for your input.